To evaluate the effectiveness of a 3-month treadmill desk intervention in eliciting changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior among overweight/obese office workers.
A randomized controlled trial was conducted among overweight/obese office workers (n = 41; mean age = 40.1 ± 10.1 years) at a private workplace. Participants were randomly assigned to a shared-treadmill desk intervention (n = 21) or a usual working condition control group (n = 20). Accelerometer-determined physical activity and sedentary behavior were measured before and after the intervention.
Compared with the control group, the intervention group increased daily steps (1622 steps/day; P = 0.013) and light physical activity (1.6 minutes/hour; P = 0.008), and decreased sedentary time (−3.6 minutes/hour; P = 0.047) during working hours.
Shared-treadmill desks in the workplace can be effective at promoting favorable changes in light physical activity (specifically 40 to 99 steps/minute) and sedentary behavior among overweight/obese office workers.
From the School of Biological and Population Health Sciences (Dr Schuna), Oregon State University, Corvallis; College of Health and Human Performance (Dr Swift), East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina; and Pennington Biomedical Research Center, (Ms Hendrick, Ms Duet, Dr Johnson, Dr Martin, Dr Church, and Dr Tudor-Locke), Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Address correspondence to: Catrine Tudor-Locke, PhD, FACSM, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, 6400 Perkins Rd, Baton Rouge, LA 70808 (Tudor-Locke@pbrc.edu).
This research was supported by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana.
Dr Catrine Tudor-Locke and her husband (Mr. Gerald Locke) are co-inventors, and thus intellectual property holders, of a workstation alternative device not discussed in the manuscript.
The authors declare no other conflicts of interest.
